For those hijacking the Boston Thread about Iraq bomb blast please post here

Da Shins Kelly

mr_edge_to_you wrote: »

Personally I really have little or no interest in Iraq and equally I have little or no interest in 3 unfortunate people who died in Boston.

I heard a lunch time news report and they were all talking about "remembering those who had died" before some of the major international marathons in signs of "solidarity and support". This is over the top stuff.

Mass media gives rise to mass hysteria.

And furthermore, if the Boston bombings is the work of some homegrown loon, all this hysteria is probably just feeding their appetite for attention.

Equium

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

There are very rarely explosions in Bolivia.
Do you think this would have made headlines if it had happened in Bolivia?

Can nobody seriously accept that US lives matter more to the media when there's an attack like this? Is this being contested?

Come off it guys. If people are going to come forwards with online tributes and facebook messages and sitting trance-like as Sky News pore over the details for the nth time, at least have the decency to admit the hypocrisy.

We're part of the Anglosphere. Of course the media sources here - which are very much influenced by the British and Americans - are going to devote a huge amount of time and debate to a bombing that concerns people whom share a similar cultural heritage and way of life. Same as with the London bombings a few years back - They received much more attention here than the terrorist attacks in Spain beforehand.

I do find it sad, however, when car bombings, etc. in Iraq and Afghanistan are mentioned almost in passing these days. They are in many respects an American and British creation, after all, and the death toll since the invasions of both countries is truly horrific.

Cody Pomeray

Equium wrote: »

We're part of the Anglosphere.

Is "we're part of the anglosphere" not another way of saying "they're our sort of people".

Rastadoyle

also loads died in an Iranian earthquake but there part of the axis arent they!

Blisterman

I think the reason for the disproportionate coverage is quite simple. People see the Boston bombings, a public event in a western looking city, like ones we've all been to and think "that could happen to me".

NuckingFacker

It's like when the popular, good looking girl at school falls and cuts her knee. Everyone oohs, aahs and offers sympathy. When the munter trips and bursts herself, no-one much cares. That's not fair, equitable or proportionate, but it's the way it is. America is the cool kid with the nice clothes. Iraq is the scruffy looking weird kid down the back with a snotty nose and that strange rash.

Madam_X

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

I'm sick to death of this disproportionate coverage. It is all over the media.

This morning I turned on facebook to see a dumb "WE STAND BESIDE OUR AMERICAN ALLIES AT THIS DIFFICULT TIME" meme from the UK being shared and liked.

It's sickening. The media, although visibly dejected by the unremarkable numbers involved, are resorting to all sorts of emotive language like 'battlefield' and "the war zone mile".

And while you cannot blame the US media for donating so much time to this tragic story, strangely enough, it's the non US media which is just as hysterical.

I don't like to bring up the bombs in Somalia and Iraq yesterday, but it is an awkward reality.

In truth, most Irish people will not have known anyone in serious danger yesterday. We can try to explain away our interest in this story as cultural, racial or historic.

Either way, it comes down to a subjugation of importance of humanity and human life to whether the victims are the right nationality.

I'm not sure it's a deliberate ploy by the western media. There's an assumption a lot of the time that the media is really self aware - it's not. Certain media outlets are for sure, but it doesn't apply to the media across the board.
I agree that it seems unfair, but I'm not sure whether subjugation is deliberate, and the reaction to it by other states is bizarre considering there isn't the same reaction to it by those states re atrocities in non western countries. That's what I find more unpalatable than the western media.
It's more to do with what we relate to IMO. And wouldn't an atrocity in the Middle East be more focused on by countries nearby than one in America? As in, I'd imagine it works both ways.

Airitech

There is nothing complicated here. The US and Ireland are both predominatly Christian, white, western democracies. We share a language. There is a huge Irish emigrant community in the US, particularly on the eastern seaboard.

We have massive exposure to US and British media in all forms. We watch American tv and films and listen to American music. A large part of the population have visited the US.

We have none of that with Iraq. People die everyday from guns and car crashes in the US but not from bomb/terrorist attacks. People are killed in bombings everyday in Iraq.

What happened in Boston was exceptional and people who identify with the US will want to know about it. The media just deliver that. They are in the business of selling advertising time so they will give the viewer what they want to keep them tuned in. They will sensationalise it to gain a commercial edge but that has been going on for years.

Cody Pomeray

Madam_X wrote: »

I'm not sure it's a deliberate ploy by the western media.

Well now I wouldn't want to use the word ploy, which hints at an ulterior motive.

The media corporations' goal in life is mostly very simple: shift those papers and don't touch that dial.

The problem is a self-perpetuated exchange between media corporations and the people. To stay in business, media corporations give the people what they want to hear. And by giving the people what they want, they frame and re-enforce our world-views, including our cultural alliances. And so the cycle goes on without challenge.

Occasionally, in the most responsible media groups, dissident voices are employed to break the chain and slowly shift debate.

All I am asking is people play their own part in re-examining their own attitudes as part of the constant cycle of reflection, action and evaluation that must occur in a developed, civilised, responsible society.

Standman

Terrorist attacks on the US have directly lead to the death of countless middle-easterners, the complete reshaping of foreign societies and permanent historical change to vast regions of the world. This is a huge part of why attacks on the US get so much coverage. Also people seem to forget that as long as it does not directly affect you, news is simply another form of entertainment - however distasteful that is to admit.

Scotty #

Another bomb, another 27 dead.

America (and Britain) really does have a lot to answer for

Spanish Harlem

^^^
So America deserved the recent bombing attacks as it brought it on itself...?

Sulla Felix

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

I'm sick to death of this disproportionate coverage. It is all over the media.

This morning I turned on facebook to see a dumb "WE STAND BESIDE OUR AMERICAN ALLIES AT THIS DIFFICULT TIME" meme from the UK being shared and liked.

It's sickening. The media, although visibly dejected by the unremarkable numbers involved, are resorting to all sorts of emotive language like 'battlefield' and "the war zone mile".

And while you cannot blame the US media for donating so much time to this tragic story, strangely enough, it's the non US media which is just as hysterical.

I don't like to bring up the bombs in Somalia and Iraq yesterday, but it is an awkward reality.

In truth, most Irish people will not have known anyone in serious danger yesterday. We can try to explain away our interest in this story as cultural, racial or historic.

Either way, it comes down to a subjugation of importance of humanity and human life to whether the victims are the right nationality.

Dint know if anyone mentioned it but there were boardsies running. so not that unlikely to know someone there.

Da Shins Kelly

Spanish Harlem wrote: »

^^^
So America deserved the recent bombing attacks as it brought it on itself...?

Way to go for jumping to an insane conclusion!